“Shehbaz’s succession may be a well-calculated step. However, on purely ethical grounds, it would have been an admirable opportunity for the PML-N to dispense with an overtly dynastic exercise of power,” the Daily Times said in an editorial.

“To be able to learn from major setbacks is perhaps the most important virtue in politics,” it said.

“The PML-N would do well to pay heed to its own recent debacle as it goes about the business of choosing a successor to Nawaz Sharif.”

The daily said Nawaz Sharif and his government had completely misunderstood the nature of the challenge to their rule.

“They failed to recognise that the questions being raised about them in the Panamagate investigation were not just about mudslinging by an unscrupulous opposition – they were also a direct attack on their legitimacy in large segments of urban Pakistan.

“Now, with the choice of Shehbaz Sharif as future Prime Minister, unfortunately, the ruling party seems to have strengthened one of the perceptions driving the anti-PML-N sentiment,” it said.

The daily said there was resentment against both the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) – that the country’s two main parties were “vehicles of dynastic politics for two families”.